Instead of smearing Justin Trudeau over visit, act against mosque if it is a threat: Liberals

OTTAWA — If the Conservative government had legitimate security concerns about a Montreal mosque’s alleged Al-Qaeda connections, it should have acted on them rather than criticizing Liberal leader Justin Trudeau for visiting there in 2011, the Liberals charged Wednesday.

For a while now, Sun News has been doing its best to portray Justin Trudeau as a sort of Islamist fifth columnist. This week, one Sun host told viewers that Trudeau is in thrall on Mideast issues to a “Saudi-born Muslim extremist” who “supports” terrorists. The same host warns darkly that there are three times as many Muslim voters in Canada as Jews.

This is not surprising, since some of the network’s journalists seem to regard themselves as semi-official members of Stephen Harper’s opposition-research team. And since many Sun viewers already suspect that Trudeau was born in Kenya along with Barack Obama, its Muslim Menace programming presumably plays well to the network’s base.

Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney on Wednesday accused Mr. Trudeau of associating “with a group that allegedly radicalizes Canadians to join Al-Qaeda and engage in acts of unspeakable violent extremism.”

The Liberals acknowledged Mr. Trudeau had visited a mosque in his riding, the Al Sunnah Al Nabawiah mosque, that had been identified in a leaked U.S. Defence Department report as a past Al-Qaeda training centre. But Mr. Trudeau visited the mosque before any allegations against it were made publicly, the Liberals said, and he would have no way of knowing the Pentagon had concerns about it.

The Conservatives dispatched a fundraising email to supporters Wednesday, hoping to use the affair to solicit donations to the party. The Tories tied the mosque visit to comments Mr. Trudeau made about the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, in which he mused about the need to address the root causes of terrorism.

The mosque was one of nine Islamic places of worship where “known Al-Qaeda members were recruited, facilitated or trained,” according to the 2008 document made public by The New York Times in April 2011.

The document listed past affiliation with the mosque among numerous factors in a “Matrix of Threat” developed to assess whether detainees at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, might be a threat to American interests.

Mr. Blaney, in a press release from his ministerial office, accused the Liberal leader of “pandering for votes amongst religious extremists in our own communities.”

But Liberal House Leader Ralph Goodale said Mr. Trudeau’s visit to the mosque occurred in March 2011, the month before the document was made public by the Times.

No one at the mosque could be reached to confirm the date of the visit. There is no evidence Mr. Trudeau knew of the alleged connection to Al-Qaeda or that anyone he met with from the mosque had any Al-Qaeda links.

“If it was a real threat, then surely it’s the Harper government’s job is to act on it, rather than throwing around smears and innuendo,” Mr. Goodale said. “They should be dealing with the security issue. Instead, they smear Mr. Trudeau. That just shows how petty and irresponsible this government is.”

‘If it was a real threat, then surely it’s the Harper government’s job is to act on it, rather than throwing around smears’

The same line of attack on Mr. Trudeau was in a fundraising email sent out by the Conservative Party. The party’s director of political operations, Fred DeLorey, highlighted the story as an example of Mr. Trudeau’s poor judgment and unsuitability to become prime minister, writing “it’s still hard to believe he’d sink this low.”

Mr. DeLorey also cited the Boston Marathon comments, adding: “But seeking support from a place where extremists were recruited? That would be one giant, shocking step further.”

Mr. Blaney’s office would not say what, if any, action the government has taken against the mosque since the U.S. report.

“I cannot comment on operational matters related to national security,” said spokesman Jean-Christophe de Le Rue in an email. “What I can say is that our Government is working to combat radicalization leading to violent extremism through stronger legislation and strengthening relationships with Canada’s allies in the world.”